I was looking for ways to degoogle my existing android phone. The thought came to my mind as a Gemini (AI from Google) pop up suddenly appared on my phone’s screen and started recording my voice as I was speaking to somebody.
Apparently, after going through existing phones or solutions, I realized that I could not degoogle my existing phone. Again, I tried to learn if I could install Linux OS on my phone. In this case too, my particular phone was not on the eligible list.
Since, I was almost too angry by the encroachment of Big company’s AI onto my ‘peace’, I was determined to do at least symbolic. Hence, I looked for options to see what can be done on my Windows 11 PC. There too, AI was expanding its arms during 2025-26ish.
First, I found Fedora Workstation 44 as appealing OS to make my PC debloated and that could help me in my digital decluttering. The transition needed me to transfer all my documents and images to an external drive and clean install Fedora Linux on the PC.
I liked the debloatedness of the OS. It had all I needed as a PC user. App manager had almost all apps that I needed: Internet Browsers, LibreOffice Apps, GIMP, Zotero Reference Manager, VLC Media Player, Visual Studio Code, Pre-installed Media Codecs, and so on.
One day, I found that Fedora Linux could not open HEIC image files that I had on my external drive. Guess what? - I decided to go for Linux Mint. Rest is history. I am content with Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition and I think that I will never return to MS Windows.
In this journey, I feel like trying Linux helped me to declutter my digital space. Though I have installed Go, Git and required dependencies on Linux Mint, I now begin to believe that I have control over my own PC. I also found it so challenging that I love to do it and never want to return to MS Windows. FOSS Rocks!
